


say no to this

by orangeshoe



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Capes, Fluff, M/M, Runaway AU, Will add tags as I go, two babies looking for a place to call home
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 03:05:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10324154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeshoe/pseuds/orangeshoe
Summary: Don’t forget where you’re going.Don’t forget where you belong.





	

The scenery passes by at a medium pace--not as slowly as it did in the plane, but not as quickly as it did in the taxi. It’s a little bumpy, but nothing he can’t handle. He’s had worse, after all. And honestly? After all the stress and struggle it took to get here, he’s just glad he’s done with all the difficult parts.

Jason slumps in his seat a bit and sighs. Sixteen years old. He’d been waiting for it for forever, and not for the usual reason kids anticipate their “Sweet 16.” He always hated the significance of the numbers, the weight they held, but he couldn’t help it. You can’t fly alone without a signature until you’re 16? Then so be it. He’d count down the days, hours. Just get. Him. Out.

So he managed to get a plane ticket, through some unconventional methods, sure, but he had to make sure not to leave an obvious trail. It would’ve been too easy, too convenient, to just hop on a bus and run. He’d come up with a plan for years, perfecting each step and having backup plans for his backup plans, even if most of them were just “if this doesn’t work, figure something out that does.”

The taxi ride was fine, he guessed. He made sure not to let much of his face show in the darkness, answered questions with short but sufficient answers. He was visiting family, they’d pick him up closer to home. A generic story that nobody could question too much. Got dropped off at a thrift store, got a hoodie and some shorts. If it got hot he could take off his shirt, and if it was cold he was sure he could warm himself up. Had to be cost effective, right? 

Now here he was, in this big cross-country bus, listening to the driver ramble on about his old jobs and trying to crack jokes. Jason can’t remember the last time he got some real sleep, but it doesn’t matter right now. He just had to get to Oregon and he’d be set. He wasn’t really sure what was in Portland, but he’d heard about it enough to think yeah, he’ll figure something out. Gloomy, rainy weather, looks like the slums at most every corner, people are aggressive and smear shit on the bathroom walls of the local Fred Meyer’s--a supermarket, he thinks--when they were dissatisfied. “Really sounds like my kind of addictive, toxic town,” he’d commented to one of the kids he met on the street.

He said it with a grin, but inside he felt his heart sink. “Why don’t you look for something better for yourself? Find a new, happier place, somewhere that doesn’t remind you of home,” some dumb voice in the back of his head thought. But home wasn’t really any sort of place to him. He just knew what kind of city he fit into.

He knew where he belonged.

Shaking his head, he pulls his hood over his ears and glances away from the window to see who else is on the bus. It’s hard to see, since the seats are tall, but he can catch glimpses and always scoped everyone out as they boarded in each city and state. He put his bag on the window seat and sat in the aisle, feeling too closed off when he tried it the other way around. Plus, if he’s sitting on the aisle seat, people won’t assume that there’s an empty seat and won’t ask to sit next to him.

That is, until the bus is almost full and--surprise, surprise, the shitty company nearly overbooked this trip. He tried to get a trip that wasn’t around any holidays or school breaks, but he guessed this was just his unlucky weekend. Oh well, he’ll have to deal. No going back now.

As the bus pulled off the freeway, Jason felt his leg starting to bounce. He wondered what kind of person might try to sit next to him, if any at all. If anything, he hoped to all hell that it wouldn’t be some awkward person trying to make conversation. He didn’t feel like doing any of the usual small talk, slowly divulging fake information about himself because God forbid he actually share where he was going and why. 

That, and he was just plain tired. Putting on face takes up a lot of energy.

While he thought about the possibilities and ran through his story again, just to be sure, the bus slowed to a stop next to a small building across from the train tracks. He put his earphones in just for good measure as the driver announced, “Salt Lake City,” and proceeded to swing open the safety door to let people off. Jason watched the driver go to the bottom of the bus and open the luggage compartments, taking a glance at those who were getting ready to board. A man with a large duffel bag, two women with some tote bags and a luggage, maybe one or two college students with their backpacks and suitcases, two middle aged adults with a baby--god, he wishes he actually had a phone so he could turn up the volume already, and.. Was that a teenager? 

As people continued shuffling off the bus and some went into the store to get snacks or just stretch, Jason couldn’t tear his eyes away. He looked.. Young. Younger than he was, maybe. His long black hair got in his face as he handed his ticket over and smiled. Something about his smile was off, and Jason didn’t like it. Then the kid seemed to look right into his eyes, and Jason quickly turned away.

Why did he do that? 

The bus windows are tinted as dark as can be, there’s no way he really saw him. But those eyes.. He settled back into his aisle seat, his hands in his hoodie pocket and fiddling with the end of the earphone cord. He tried to focus on the cool metal, staring at his feet that obnoxiously bounced on the extendable footrest in front of him, trying to map out the rest of the bus route in his head, until-

“Can I sit with you?”

Jason jumped a little, startled out of his thoughts and embarrassed to have shown it. He looked up quizzically at his offender, an eyebrow cocked high when he saw that same soft black hair framing a young boy’s face.

Apparently something about Jason intimidated the boy, because he proceeded to stammer “I--I mean, can I sit in that empty seat? There’s not really a lot of seats here, and there’s an outlet in this chair, so..” His voice drifted off, and Jason looked down to the spot between the two seats in front of him. There was, indeed, an electrical outlet there that Jason hadn’t even noticed. 

“Oh,” he said. Then he shot a quick glance up to the boy, who was patiently waiting with his big backpack--holy shit, what was in that thing?--hanging off his shoulders. Jason glanced to the rest of the bus and then, resigned, reached over to pick up his own flimsy drawstring bag and shifted himself into the window seat. “Sure.”

The boy nodded and dropped his bag from his shoulders, putting it on the floor in front of his new seat before plopping into the seat himself. “Thanks,” he said plainly, and immediately a laptop emerged from that huge backpack and the boy was plugging it in to that outlet he’d pointed out earlier.

With the slowly setting sun, the laptop just barely lit up the boy’s face as he waited for it to boot up. Jason was pretty impressed at how quickly he had started typing away on it, feeling like it was only something he saw in movies. He’s worked a good computer a few times before, yeah, but something about this was.. Magical? Nah, too cheesy. But definitely different. He watched the fingers--they were kinda long, slender, but not awkwardly so--press into the keys so lightly and Jason smirks a little remembering how much he loves the feeling of keys popping down and back up. There was just something satisfying about it.

He didn’t realize how intensely he was staring until the boy cleared his throat.

“Um.. I’m kinda gonna work on something personal, so..”

Jason blinked. Before he could say ‘What?’ like a fool, he quickly realized yeah, this was weird, he was just watching this random kid on the computer and he knows better than to be that obvious. “Right. Sorry.. Just kinda stare off sometimes.”

Somehow, that triggered a soft laugh out of the boy. “Yeah, I hear that. No worries. I’m like that when I haven’t slept in a while. Like the other day, I was at Starbucks and this lady suddenly comes up to me and asks if I thought she was my mom or something. And if not, then she was going to have to find my mom and tell her I creepily stare at older women in coffee shops,” he laughs again, then quickly bites his lips, as if he didn’t mean to say that.

Jason just smiled and chuckled, feeling like he’s understanding that guarded smile a bit better, the one he saw before the boy boarded the bus. “So, were you?”

“Was I what?” the boy had tilted his laptop screen down halfway at this point, he really meant it when he said personal.

“Were you being a creep?”

“Wha--No!” His cheeks puffed up a bit and he opened his laptop again, this time dimming the screen brightness as he pouted slightly. “I was just in a daze. Thinking too hard,” he mumbled, and Jason just shook his head and leaned his elbow on the tiny bit of a window ledge the bus had.

They stayed like that for a while, mostly quiet, with the low hum of the bus as it thrummed down the freeway, the boy tapping away on his computer, Jason looking out and fiddling with his earphone cord absentmindedly. 

At one point, the baby had started crying, and it wasn’t until then that Jason realized his eyes had been closed for longer than five seconds. Others had started to get chatty, the night rolling in deep and he figured people were getting restless, especially with the baby causing a fuss. He yawned quietly then looked over to see if the boy next to him was one, still there, and two, still on his laptop.

To little surprise, there he was, tapping away, but the dim screen looked bright now in this darkened sky, which helped Jason see what the boy was doing.

“Is that a game?” he heard himself ask, leaning over slightly to get a better look. There was a character flying through some mountains on some sort of dragon-looking thing. It actually looked pretty good.

The boy glanced over, then back to his screen as he tapped a key to redirect the character. “Oh, uh, yeah. I’ve been sort of addicted.”

Jason cracked a grin at that. He loved video games, loved the arcade he went to when he was not much younger than he is now. There were games with guns, games that you sat in and drove, ones where you hit things with a hammer. And he’d known some people with video game consoles and stuff too, they were pretty neat, especially playing online with other people. “That’s cool.”

“You like video games?” The character was still flying. Jason could see it was some sort of elf-looking thing.

Jason scoffed. “I gotta say, I’m offended. What kid doesn’t?”

The boy shrugged small and tilted his head. “You just seemed kinda.. I dunno, too cool for it? I guess.”

Which prompted Jason to scoff again. _More like too poor_ , he wanted to say. But he withheld. He's not about to throw his own pity party with some kid he just met. “Nobody’s too cool for video games.. If people say that, they’re just insecure.”

And the boy chuckled again. “I must be hanging in the wrong crowd then.” Then he looked at Jason, and was holding out his hand. “I figure we might as well get this out of the way. I’m Tim,” he said, with that odd smile again.

“Jason,” he said with a nod, carefully maintaining the slouch in his seat. Sharing his first name wouldn’t be so bad. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and took the boy--Tim’s--hand, shaking it firmly. 

Tim’s eyes widened as Jason’s hand met his. “Geez! Your hands are freezing--aren’t you cold?” He then proceeded to give Jason a look over, eyes hanging on his sandals and shorts, and frowned.

Jason shrugged, used to it by now. “Not really.”

“Are you sure..? I can give you like, a scarf or something. Or I might have some sweatpants..” He started to shuffle through his bag and Jason felt sick.

“Don’t,” he bit out quickly, roughly, and Tim froze. “..Just.. I’m okay. Don’t worry about it.”

And Jason had to look on a little guilt-ridden as Tim seemed to grow a little timid, shrugging one of his shoulders and leaning back in his seat. “Okay.. But if you change your mind, let me know. It’s really no sweat,” he said as he went back to tapping away at his laptop.

There was an awkward silence then, where Jason battled in his mind with what to do or say next. The last thing he wanted was someone’s pity, not when he’d gotten this far on his own. But then his face broke into a little grin, and he felt his body relax.

“No ‘sweat’, huh..? You must think you’re _so_ funny.”

Tim’s face contorted then, and his head whipped to turn to Jason so fast that his bangs got caught on his nose bridge and Jason couldn’t help but laugh. “It wasn’t on purpose!”

“Sure, Tim. Keep telling yourself that,” he snorted, folding his arms and settling back against the window again.

He heard Tim huff and caught a glimpse of him rolling his eyes as he went back to his game. Tim blew the hair out of his face and rolled his shoulders, like he was getting in the zone for playing his apparently very intense game.

Jason thinks about how he let himself drift off earlier, and wonders why he let down his guard for the first time that trip. He watches the lighted freeway signs zoom by, and the long patches of grass that barely showed through the darkness. There was another bus transfer in a few days, then it’s another few days until Portland. Taking a deep breath, he let it out through his nose slowly.

Don’t forget where you’re going. 

Don’t forget where you belong.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought of this on a whim and it's 4AM and I can't feel my face so I haven't proofread this at all but also I had to get it out there because I came up with so many ideas for it that I'd be denying myself happiness if I didn't write it. Thank you for reading! I hope you stick around for more, and I'm always open to critique.


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